Advanced Geothermal Innovation Leadership Act of 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am coming to the floor today as we have just passed the 1-year mark since H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, passed the House of Representatives. This is a piece of legislation supported by 90 percent of the American public. It is hard for anything to enjoy 90 percent support in this country these days.
The data shows us that this is a piece of legislation that, if enacted, would save lives. We have begged and pleaded for this piece of legislation to come before the Senate. I understand that there may not be 60 votes in the Senate to pass the exact piece of legislation supported by the House, but we could engage in a process of amendment, a process of compromise, and that could end up saving lives and getting a piece of legislation passed that is supported, as I mentioned, by 9 out of 10 Americans.
I have some remarks after what I expect will be an objection to my motion from the majority party.
I will ask unanimous consent of my colleagues that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 29, H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act; I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.
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Mr. MURPHY. I am sorry to hear the objection. It is obviously not surprising. We have been waiting for a year for this body to act on the issue of gun violence. And though there are a range of measures that may actually be controversial, this is not one of them. This is not one of them.
It is really hard to find folks in America who object to the idea that somebody should have to prove that they are not a criminal, that they don't have a history of serious mental illness, before they purchase a firearm.
The fact is, the longer we wait, the more people die. There is no piece of legislation that is going to eliminate every single gun death in this country. In my State of Connecticut, when we passed the universal background checks law, we saw an immediate 40-percent reduction in gun homicides.
In Missouri, when they repealed their universal background checks law, they saw an immediate 25-percent increase.
That is the short-term immediate rate of return--both on the upside and the downside--you get when you take steps to ensure that criminals don't get guns or you take steps to make it easy for criminals to get guns.
Senator Blumenthal is on the floor with me as well, and he will make remarks. I have been unable to persuade my colleagues, based on the data, that we should pass background checks--the data being the broad public support for the measure, the data being about the impact on people's lives that this piece of legislation would have.
I want to make the case that, just from the simple standpoint of humanity, we should care about listening to the American public and passing legislation that will reduce these numbers. This is heartbreaking. Some 39,000 people a year are dying from gunshot wounds, with 3,011 on average a month and 100 a day.
The majority of these are suicides, but the data tells us that by making it harder for people to buy guns who shouldn't have them because of a serious history of mental illness or because of their criminal background, you will have less suicides. Many of these are homicides, and many of these are accidental shootings. All of them are preventable by better policy.
Remember, this happens in the United States and nowhere else in the advanced-income world. It is not because we have more mental illness in the United States. There is no evidence of that. It is not because our kids play more video games in the United States. There is no evidence of that. It is not because we spend less money on law enforcement. There is no evidence of that. It is because this country is awash in illegal and dangerous guns. It is because we have made a choice to make it a lot easier for some to find a way to a lethal firearm to commit an act of violence.
Every single one of the 100 persons who die every day is attached to families and friends and neighbors. The data suggests that for everybody who is killed in a gun homicide, there are 20 other people who experience some kind of life-altering, diagnosable trauma because of it.
I want to tell you a few of these stories today--stories of people who over the last year have been among this statistic--40,000 people who died from gunshot wounds. In March 2019, 1 month after H.R. 8 got to the Senate, Shelby Verderosa was home with her 6-month-old daughter when she was shot and killed in Phoenix, AZ. As a new mom, Shelby ``was doing everything she possibly could to make sure her daughter had the best life,'' said her cousin. One month after H.R. 8 passed the Senate, she was shot and killed when she was home with her 6-month-old daughter.
Lamar Sharp was at a picnic in Kansas City in April--2 months after H.R. 8 got here to the Senate--when he heard gunshots. Instead of running away from the gunshots toward safety, he ran to save his friend's 2-year-old grandson, and he was shot three times. He died 5 days before his 32nd birthday, 2 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate floor.
In May, 3 months after the background checks bill got to the Senate, three LGBTQ+ young people were shot in Detroit. Alunte Davis, Timothy Blancher, and Paris Cameron were known for being funny. They were known for being wildly charismatic. Police believe their sexual orientation and gender identity were factors in their murders.
A month later, 4 months after H.R. 8 got here to the Senate, Durelle Moxley was killed on Father's Day when a shooting broke out in his neighborhood. Durelle and his wife had three young children. His friends said:
He was really proud to be a father. He was pumped and he was really celebrating Father's Day.
In July, 5 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate, 5 months after sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk, awaiting action, Julianna Carr was killed by her brother in a murder-suicide at a housewarming party in Katy, TX. She left behind a husband and two children whom she called her ``greatest loves.''
Jurnee Thompson was 8 years old when she was shot in August, 6 months after the Senate got H.R. 8--6 months of doing nothing on a bill with 90 percent public support. Jurnee was the 14th child to be shot and killed in St. Louis alone last summer. Her dad says losing her was ``one of the biggest fears of my life and now I'm living it as a reality.''
In September, 7 months after H.R. 8 showed up in the Senate and the Senate did nothing with it, Usher Hanns was 17 years old when he was shot and killed. He was a senior at Weaver High School in Connecticut. He was a member of Hartford's Proud Drill, Drum, and Dance Corp. His mom said he was ``a good son. He always made me smile. He's a joyful kid.''
Deirdre Zaccardi was murdered by her husband Joseph in Abington, PA, in October, 8 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate. He also shot their three children, Alexis, Nathaniel, and Kathryn, before turning the gun on himself. The Abington police chief said their deaths were ``a horrific event no one should ever see.''
Nine months after H.R. 8 got here in November, Gracie Ann Muehlberger was shot by a classmate with a semiautomatic, untraceable ``ghost gun'' in Santa Clarita, CA. Hundreds attended Gracie's memorial service. Her friends described her as an ``independent spirit.''
In December, 10 months after the House passed H.R. 8--10 months of doing nothing with it here in the Senate--Sergeant Chris Brewster was responding to a domestic violence call in Houston. When he got there, he was shot by a suspect fleeing the scene. He was a devoted husband who loved making people laugh. Friends described him as ``wonderfully weird.''
In January, 11 months after H.R. 8 got to the Senate, Gregory Rieves was killed. He had retired after 22 years as a State trooper, a career that he called his dream job. He was killed in Illinois. His friends described him as ``the most gentle, kind-hearted person you could ever know.''
In February of this year, two sisters, Abbaney and Deja Matts, were shot by Abbaney's ex-boyfriend in a dormitory in Commerce, TX. ``I just want people to know they were fun,'' said their mom.
Just last week in Milwaukee, almost exactly a year since H.R. 8 came to the Senate, five people were shot on the campus of Molson Coors. People who went to work on a normal Wednesday and whose families will never get to hug them or tell them goodbye or hear their voices again were shot and killed in a workplace shooting.
Senator Blumenthal and I are not going to give up. We are not going to give up because of what we have been through in Connecticut, having experienced and lived through the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Sandy Hook, but also because of what we see happening every single day in places we represent--murders that happen in Hartford and Bridgeport and New Haven, murders that happen in rural areas of our State, as well--accidental shootings, homicides, suicides. Nowhere else, other than in the United States, does this epidemic of carnage happen at this rate. It happens because we have made a choice. We have made a choice to let the gun industry run Washington, DC, to give them veto power over gun policy that has helped their bottom line, that has made gun company executives rich. But it has resulted in 40,000 people a year dying--100 a day.
I will continue to come to the floor and tell the stories of those who have been lost. I am deeply sorry that when we try to bring up unanimous consent requests to the Senate to have a debate or a vote on H.R. 8, we keep hearing objections.
We don't run the Senate. Democrats are not in charge. We don't get to set the agenda. Mitch McConnell, Senator McConnell, does; Republicans who are part of leadership do. All you have to do is bring this bill to the floor. Let's have a debate on an expanded background checks proposal.
I get that the version of the bill that passed the House might not have 60 votes here, but why don't we try to find common ground? Why don't we sit down and do what the Senate used to do and find compromise that makes the country a better place? The fact that we aren't even trying to find bipartisan agreement on a background checks proposal is absolutely heartbreaking, not just to me or to Senator Blumenthal; it is heartbreaking to the survivors and the family members of the folks who aren't with us any longer. It is an insult to them that we are not even lifting a finger to try to make this country a safer place.
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